Kuradashi Gyokuro Pinnacle

Tea: Kuradashi Gyokuro Pinnacle
Vendor: Hibiki-an
Source: Uji, Japan

About This Tea: The Kuradashi Pinnacle was the highest grade of aged gyokuro offered by Hibiki-an. This product has since gone out of stock and been removed from their website. Hence the lack of price and vendor description. This particular Kuradashi Gyokuro was stored and aged for 18 months before packaging.

Leaf: The leaf for this tea is dark green and very uniform in color. The leaves have a more twisted appearance thanis normal for a gyokuro of this caliber. There is a sweet gyokruo aroma to the leaves that has hints of grassiness to it.

1st Infusion Parameters: 10g, 5oz, 140F, 45s, preheated hohin

1st Infusion: The infusion is lightly murky with a yellowish hue to it. There is a very sweet and calming aroma to this tea. The flavor screams umami. It is very strong and promient in this tea, moreso than most other gyokuro that I have tried. There is al ight grassiness to this tea and it actually has a thickness that reminds me of a soup broth more than any other gyokuro. It is smooth, bold and full bodied. The flavor is very round, with no strenght on the backend. The back does make up for this with a very strong brothy aftertaste though. Overall this feels very mellow and thick. There is a ligthly raspy feeling on the tongue after finishing.

2nd Infusion Parameters: 140F, 15s

2nd Infusion: This infusion has a clearer yellow green hue. The flavor is not as centralized this time. It is still rich, but it is lacking on strength in the core. There is a light sense of bitterness and astringency to this infusion. The flavor is still brothy, but not quite as much as the first infusion. It still has a strong umami feeling to it.

3rd Infusion Parameters: 145F, 30s

3rd Infusion: This infusion has the same yellow hue as the second infusion. It exhibits a lightly grassy aroma. There is a medium bitterness to be found in this infusion surprisingly. The flavor again shows strength, but the umami portion of the flavor is much lighter this time around. It feels very light and sharp with hints of a marine flavor to this tea. The tea finishes off with a light sense of astringency, and has the same roughness on the tongue as the first infusion.

4th Infusion Parameters: 1:00, 130F

4th Infusion: This infusion has a richer gyokuro aroma to it. The tea is a light straw yellow hue. There is a medium astringency to it, yet despite this there is a soft and rich flavor to it. The marine flavor is starting to show itself more, stronger than the second infusion, but not overly powerful. There is a sharper aftertaste to this infusion, paired with a sense of bitterness.

5th Infusion Parameters: 130F, 1:30

5th Infusion: The color of the tea switched to a light yellow green hue this time. There is not much of a noticeable aroma to the tea. The flavor is smooth and finishes with a medium sense of astringency. There is a light sharpness on the backend. Ther eis not much flavor in this infusion and the tea is starting to feel a little watery.

6th Infusion Parameters: 145F, 2:00

6th Infusion: This infusion was a pale yllow color. It has a smooth and light flavor to it with a medium sense of astringency. There is a light bitterness on the backend, but it's starting to let up.

Rating: 9/10

Conclusion: This tea is an interesting experience. Not the finest gyokuro that I've had, but not the worst. It's definitely a good drink, but I'm not sure that I would order it again. The aging of a Kuradashi has an interesting effect on the tea, but even with a gyokuro I find myself missing the vibrance of freshness. The price of this tea was quite prohibitive. If I remember right the next grade down was a times cheaper. I expected a more interesting flavor out of this tea, but ended up disappointed. Don't get me wrong though, this tea is a good drink and beats quite a few gyokuro out there, but it's just not what I expected from pinnacle grade.

Kuradashi Sencha

Tea: Kuradashi Sencha
Vendor: Hibiki-An
Source: Uji, Japan

About this tea: This tea was a limited time offering from Hibiki-an. Kuradashi Sencha is an intentionally aged sencha. Normally the aged tea is a gyokuro producing a Kuradashi Gyokuro. Instead with this tea it was an aged sencha. The sencha was aged for 18 months in a storehouse.

Leaf: The leaf for this tea had a rich uniform dark green color to it. Most of the leaves were good sized leaves and there was almost now powder to it. This suggests that this is probably a chumushi style sencha. There was an interesting woody light aroma to this tea leaf.

1st Infusion Parameters: 5g, 5 oz, 170F, 1 min

1st Infusion: The tea has a light green hue with a hint of yellow to it. The aroma feels smooth and balanced. The flavor is exactly matching the aroma, smooth and balanced. It is mild with no bitterness or astringency. It is slightly sweet, but the main aspect that comes to mind when tasting is how smooth of a sencha this feels.

2nd Infusion Parametsrs: 170F, 1 min

2nd Infusion: This is a darker and murkier yellow hue this time. The leaves have expanded nice and fully. The aroma is very sweet and mellow. There is a hint of woodiness similar to a kukicha, but more refined and mellow. There is a light bitterness paired with a rich sencha flavor. It provides a very smooth flavor again that is well balanced with the bitterness. There is a heavy flavor in the mid-end portion of the flavor.

Rating: 10/10

Conclusion: When the kuradashi sencha first was released on their website I was dubious as to if this was something that created an interesting product or if it was just a ploy to sell more tea. It turns out this is quite the interesting product indeed. The aging process seems to produce a very mellow flavor out of the tea, and this causes the tea to be very smooth and mellow. I very much enjoyed this tea and look forward to it again next year.

Kuradashi Gyokuro Super Premium

Tea: Kuradashi Gyokuro Super Premium
Vendor: Hibiki-an
Price: $24.00/ 40g
Source: Uji, Japan

About This Tea: This tea is a Kuradashi tea. Kuradashi teas are teas that have been stored for a period of time to intentionally age the tea. This was stored for 18 months before packaging.

Leaf: The leaf for this tea has a lightly grassy aroma. The leaf is dark in color. The shape is very similar to the o-cha Yame Gyokuro.

1st Infusion Parameters: 5g, 140F, 5oz, 60s

1st Infusion: The first infusion had a pale green color to it. It was quite transparent with just a hint of color. The tea has a very unusual aroma, it's an almost woody aroma to it. There is a rich umami flavor to this infusion and it is much less grassy than most gyokuro. The flavor was lighter than many gyokuro, but it was still very full bodied. The flavor was predominantly a marine/seaweed flavor, which followed through from beginning to end.

2nd Infusion Parameters: 145F, 15s

2nd Infusion: This infusion had a much brighter color to it. There was a light amount of murkiness to it, and a radiant green color which reminded me a bit of shincha. The tea has a light dry aroma to it. The marine/seaweed flavor was dominant in this infusion as well. The tea is very smooth and enjoyable. There is no bitterness and no astringency to it. The flavor in this infusion was very consistent from beginning to end.

3rd Infusion Parameters: 150F, 45s

3rd Infusion: This infusion had a dusty aroma to it. The marine/seaweed flavor was also dominant in this infusion. There was still a good amount of umami flavor in it, but I noticed the empty wamer water flavor showing through.

4th Infusion Parameters: 160F, 90s

4th Infusion: This infusion had a clearer color to it. There was a much lighter flavor, but it felt a bit hollow. The thickness found in the earlier infusions and richness of umami flavor was lightening up and the flavor felt a bit hollow. There were still hints of the marine/seaweed flavor though.

Rating: 10/10

Conclusion: This is a very unusual gyokruo. The flavor was the most consistent throughout the infusions as I have ever seen. Even with the increasing temperature it was smooth with no sense of bitterness or astringency, a characteristic that tends to show up during later infusions. It felt very pure and clean throughout the whole time.

Sencha Premium

Tea: Sencha Premium
Vendor: Hibiki-an
Price: $24.00 / 100g
Source: Uji, Japan
Vendor Description: Sencha contains more of the beneficial nutrient catechin than other green teas, because it is grown in full sunlight, thus it becomes yellowish green in colour. Sencha tastes gently astringent and smells wonderfully fresh.

Sencha Premium is one of the high-quality green teas available, being carefully selected from Uji Sencha.

Our Sencha Premium's tea leaves are sprouts that are small and soft and not fully-grown. They are difficult to find even in Ichibancha (the first pick of the year). Although generally the best time to gather tea leaves is when the tea tree has five sprouts, our Sencha Premium's tea leaves are gathered when the tea tree has only three sprouts. It is said that because the sprouts are younger, Sencha Premium's aroma and taste is much more mellow and refreshing.

Even in Uji, the Ujitawara region where Hibiki-an is located is known as a central area of rare highest grade Sencha production. The features of this tea are the mellow flavor and ideal astringent aroma. They are the typical features of tea leaves produced in the Uji region.

I was rather eager to try out this tea. I had heard about the quality from Hibiki-an for a while and wanted to try tea direct from the farm. I had been wondering if they ended up going with this business model to remove the need to compete against other farmers or if it simply was to bring their product to market in a more cost effective manner. Regardless they have made a name for themselves as selling tea directly from the farm to the consumer worldwide.

The leaves had a bit more of a yellowish color than I would have expected. To some degree though I wonder if this is due to the origin of the sample. This was another sample that I had received from Chip at teachat. I will probably order a bit more of this tea once the shincha flush comes out in order to see if this is or is not the case.

The first infusion of the tea had a very light sweet flavor. The flavor was very light, but lacked a sense of bitterness to it. It did however have a medium sense of astringency. I found it a bit odd to find this level of astringency in a sencha with no sense of bitterness. It was rather enjoyable.

The second infusion proved to be more interesting though. It was much murkier, suggesting that the first infusion had only awoken the leaves and that the true flavor would be released in the second infusion. The color itself was a dark green compared to the clear light green of the first infusion. This one was much more bitter than the first infusion, the characteristic bitterness was fully present here, along with a high level of astringency. The strength of the tea also switched from being a light bodied tea to a medium bodied.

Rating: 6/10

Conclusion: I was a bit disappointed since I had been expecting more from what I had heard about Hibiki-an, but I'm willing to chalk this one up to an older sample on the very tail end of the tea cycle. Even still this was a still a good solid sencha, but I don't know if it was really deserving of a name of Premium. I'm very curious to see how this turns out in this coming season.